Well, Misha, I'm with you - I've had a few too many Mich Lights - the difference between Brandy and Beer - is that Beer gets you in a talkative mood (and you know everything to boot!) "Pretty" simply doesn't cut it - it's too objective. (Don't take offense - I have not seen any of your photos...they may be excellent, but what your teacher wants is for you to be able to explain WHY they're excellent) You may be walking or driving along and suddenly stop - you see a scene that you think is "pretty" - so you shoot it. What you're NOT doing is identifying WHY this scene is "pretty". This is from experience: I was driving along in the Smokey Mountains, and ran across a wet weather falls coming down the hillside - the scene was beautiful! I had to stop and shoot it. I thumbed through my first rule - "don't move, or you will change your perspective of the scene" - so I shot it from where I first saw it.....blah! I started walking up the stream - still gorgeous - shooting here and there trying to capture what was so "pretty" - and I was failing miserably. I actually got to the point where I sat down - ticked off - started talking to myself: "Why the heck did I even THINK that this was pretty...?" - and there it was. What made this whole scene "pretty" didn't have ANYTHING to do with the surroundings - NOTHING to do with the trees, the undergrowth, even the way the stream was cascading down the hillside - it was the moss on the rocks...and the water slithering its way through those rocks. i literally worked this out verbally - out loud (an advantage to working in the field!). Once I defined what it was that attracted me to the scene, it became much easier to compose and present that feeling photographically by eliminating what distracted from my new "definition", and including everything that contributed to that definition. Photos follow...